Joel Santo DomingoLenovo ThinkCentre X1The thin, aluminum alloy Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 all-in-one is a little more stylish than your average business PC. If you need good looks along with capability in the office, it's worth considering.

No 4K option. HDMI requires an adapter. Not as fast as rivals on multimedia creation tests.

Bottom Line

The thin, aluminum alloy Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 all-in-one is a little more stylish than your average business PC. If you need good looks along with capability in the office, it's worth considering.

Sometimes you need a showy yet business-friendly desktop for a reception desk, your shared desk space, or an employee who doesn't need the portability of a work laptop. The all-in-one Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 (starts at $845.10; $1,069.99 as tested) has a bit more flash than our top pick, the Dell OptiPlex 24 7000 Series All-In-One (7440) , thanks to a slim aluminum body, as well as embellishments like a lit ThinkCentre red dot and a shiny stand. With an Intel Core i5 processor and enough memory to run most (if not all) of your business programs, the ThinkCentre X1 is a svelte all-in-one desktop that should fit in equally well at either a Fortune 500 corporation or a simple small business.

Design and FeaturesThough it's not apparent from a distance, when you get close to the ThinkCentre X1, you'll see (and feel) that the body is constructed of an aluminum alloy instead of the usual ABS plastic or polycarbonate. The inherent strength of metal helps keep the system thin (about 1.3 inches thick), especially at the top of the back panel, where there's a red LED next to a prominent ThinkCentre logo. Overall, its dimensions are 22.44 by 17.75 by 9.45 inches (HWD), including the Orchid Tilt stand. That stand is removable, so you can mount it on your wall using an optional VESA kit ($17.99). Like the red LED, the stand's shiny chrome metal finish draws your eye. The stand is a slim, L-shaped post, with a wide hinge connected to the PC that tilts from -5 to 45 degrees so you can find a comfortable viewing angle while at work. The design integrates well with a variety of office styles, particularly the open-office plan that's currently in vogue.

The 1,920-by-1,080 IPS display measures 23.8 inches, which is just under a quarter-inch smaller than the screen on the OptiPlex 24 7000 Series. That difference is not really noticeable unless you're looking at the computers side by side, though. It's not a touch display, and the antiglare coating on the screen gives it a matte finish. Even though it has that coating, the screen is easily viewable in a brightly lit room. Unfortunately, there isn't a 4K option for the ThinkCentre X1 (as there is on the OptiPlex 24 7000 Series), though the full HD screen is perfectly adequate for most business and clerical tasks. There are dual microphones above the screen, tuned for voice and Skype for Business. They can filter out ambient noise, such as from an occasionally hyperactive air-conditioning system. The front-mounted HD webcam has a physical shutter, which may be an IT requirement in your office.

Connectivity is convenient and plentiful, if not particularly diverse. There's a headset jack, an SD card reader, and two USB 3.0 ports within arm's reach, located on the left side of the PC. On the back, under the mount for the Orchid stand, there are three more USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a security lock port, and a DisplayPort connector. The last can be used as an input from another PC or output for an external display. Notably absent are USB-C and HDMI in/out ports, though there is a $24.99 adapter for the latter on Lenovo's website. Wireless connections are provided by 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. A wireless keyboard and mouse are also included, as is a shared USB dongle.

The ThinkCentre X1 comes with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD). Those are quite respectable stats, and match the capacities of the Dell OptiPlex 24 7000 Series. The Dell's more-competitively priced sibling, the Dell OptiPlex 22 3000 Series All-In-One (3240) , has only a 128GB SSD, though its 8GB of memory is enough for the multitasking you'll see in the office between Excel charts, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Slack, and so on. The SSD comes with a few Lenovo utilities and standard Windows 10 apps preinstalled, but not many more than you'll find on most business PCs. The X1 comes with a one-year warranty with on-site service.

Performance The system is equipped with an Intel Core i5-6300U processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics 520. This CPU is normally found in ultraportable laptops, which suggests that Lenovo used it to help keep the all-in-one so thin. It is certainly capable of performing day-to-day activities. It garnered a respectable score of 2,966 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test. That compares well with what we've seen from competitors like the OptiPlex 24 7000 Series (2,911), partially due to the latter's processor having to work overtime to drive a 4K screen. In contrast, the faster-clocked Core i3 processor in the OptiPlex 22 3000 Series (3,240) helped that model win at PCMark (3,387).

The difference was further borne out on the ThinkCentre X1's multimedia creation results. While still respectable overall, the 2 minutes, 30 seconds, it needed to complete the Handbrake video encoding test and 5:12 for the Photoshop test were on the long side. The Apple iMac 21.5-inch with 4K Retina Display was significantly faster on both tests (1:09 on Handbrake, 3:20 on Photoshop), as was the Optiplex 24 7000 Series. The takeaway is that the X1 is certainly fast enough for clerical and office tasks, but you'll want a faster PC for your art and design department. The 3D gaming test scores were definitely on the low end, with single-digit frame rates, but then again you're not buying a business AIO PC to equip a gaming team.

The Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 is a svelte all-in-one PC made for visible parts of your office. It's well suited for spots like the front desk of a boutique hotel, a lawyer's office, or even on the news desk of an online content farm. It's not as expensive as our Editors' Choice Dell OptiPlex 24 7000 Series, but then again it doesn't quite have that system's multimedia creation capabilities and more varied connectivity. It's certainly a worthy competitor to that Dell's stable mate, the OptiPlex 22 3000 Series, thanks to a larger SSD and display. The X1 can certainly find a good home in companies large and small.

Lenovo ThinkCentre X1

Bottom Line: The thin, aluminum alloy Lenovo ThinkCentre X1 all-in-one is a little more stylish than your average business PC. If you need good looks along with capability in the office, it's worth considering.

About the Author

Joel Santo Domingo is the Lead Analyst for the Desktops team at PC Magazine Labs. He joined PC Magazine in 2000, after 7 years of IT work for companies large and small. His background includes managing mobile, desktop and network infrastructure on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. Joel is proof that you can escape the retail grind: he wore ... See Full Bio

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